The document discusses the role of social media in global protests and revolutions, highlighting its impact on communication and political organization among hyperconnected youths facing social and economic crises. It explores the idea of 'technopolitics', which emphasizes the internet's capacity to enhance political engagement and social movements beyond traditional frameworks. Additionally, it critiques the democratic implications of state surveillance and advocates for decentralized leadership structures within modern network movements.

1. social media
and revolutionsadrià rodríguez

3. WHY IT’S KICKING OFF
EVERYWHERE!?
HOW. New ways of affection and comunication,
Internet, social media, social networks.
WHO. Highly-educated generation,
hyperconected youths, impoverishment, broken
social ladder, structural crisis labour market
(high unemployment rates, precarity and
flexibility as the norm), debt (household and/or
public debt), neoliberal reforms, attack to the
commons.
WHAT. Institutional crisis, crisis of
representation, nation-state crisis, governance
crisis, corruption, constitutional crisis, lack of
social and human rights, welfare crisis.
The networked character of modern
society makes country-specific unrest
predictions pointless. There is, in reality, one
political entity that matters. Right now it is more
unequal than it’s ever been; its core economic
model is destroyed; the consent of its citizens
to be governed is eroded. It is the world
- Paul Mason

4. Number of world protests by main grievance/demand 2006-2013

5. The logics of contagion and the protests worldwide from 2010 to 2013
Social media call
Concrete event
Others (social unrest)

6. #15o 2011 . World protest in more than 1000 cities

9. States are opaque for citizens and
citizens are transparent for
states. This is surveillance.
States have to be transparent for citi-
zens and citizens have to be opaque
for states. This is democracy.
- Jeremie Zimmerman

10. Autonomous organizations: Democracia Real Ya!
MASS SELF-COMMUNICATION

11. Autonomous communication: 15m

12. Toque a Bankia
(2012)

13. We can hope for a transformation of
mass-media power that will overcome
contemporary subjectivity, and for the
beginning of a post-media era of
collective-individual reappropriation and
an interactive use of machines of
information, communication, intelligence,
art and culture. -Felix Guattari
NEW PUBLIC SPHERE

14. The whole world tracking #occupywallstreet upheaval on 17.09.2011

15. Front page coverage of the Occupy
movement in the USA

16. Front page coverage of the 15m movement in Spain

17. front pages newspapers 11-13 May 2011 front pages newspapers 16-18 May 2011
Front page coverage of the 15m movement in Spain

18. Lilia Weslaty

19. Nabermedya

21. The Streisand Effect

22. 1. Twitterevolution?
or
Technopolitics paradigm
RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
Internet use grows a 20%
during the emergence
of the #15m and the
occupation of the squares
all around Spain in 2011.
This increase is mainly on
the use of Facebook and
Twitter.
Technopolitics is not clicktivism nor cyberactivism.
Technopolitics is not just the mere use of the
Internet and social networks, but a new paradigm of
political organization, affection, communication and
struggling through and within the net.
Technopolitics is not about Internet itself but about
the capacity of Internet to increase the political
potentialities of the hiperconected multitudes, to
increase capacities of cooperation and affection
between brains/bodies through the Internet tools.
Technopolitics paradigm is not homogenic, there are
differences between countries and regions: differences
on digital divide, internet cultures, and digital
alphabetization.

23. Destituent & constituent yellings Min 5’10’’

24. New political paradigm
#15m 2011 network
(cooperation and interaction)
spanish political parties network
(competitivity and identity)

25. 2. Social movements?
or
Network-movements, Network-system
Network-system its a complex network
with a multiplicity of nodes which are
articulated organically and in a ever
changing way.
Network-movements go beyond the
sociological cathegory of social movements.
They are articulated through the network
and reach and involve a much more larger
number of people than the ‘former’ social
movements.

26. network-system #15m
2011
network-system #15m
2012

27. 3. Horizontailty? Leaderlessness?
or
Transversality, distributed/temporary/coreographical leadership,
borderless organization
Social media use is not characterized by absolute
horizontality, but is rather accompanied by the rise
of new forms of soft leadership. The term “choreo-
graphy” is a metaphor to render the idea that at
the time of social media protest activity is not as
spontaneous and disorganised as it might appear
at first sight. Rather, by using social media, acting
as Facebook admins or popular movement tweeps,
contemporary digital activists come to act as chore-
graphers or soft leaders of sorts - Paolo Gerbaudo

28. transversality and distributed/temporary/coreographical leadership

29. Decentralized/temporary/coreographical leadership

30. 4. Fiction vs. Real?
or
Geoterritory-Cyberterritory, Simbiosis
Multilayer revolt, Augmented-event
Not everyone in the world is in
the Internet, but everyone in the
Internet is in the world
- @Ciudadadano_zero0

31. Lina Ben Mhenni

32. Egyptian revolution: the network and the square

33. Swarming: voces25s
(2012)

34. STATE
#Control #Surveillance
MARKET
#Selling data from prosumers,
#Selling brands and products to prosumers
Privacy
Encription
Free culture, free infromation and free software
P2P
Autonomous platforms and media, but.... >
+
WE/
GLOBAL
CITIZENS/
99%
#Democracy
#Rights
DEMOCRACY FOR/FROM THE NETWORKS

35. It’s very hard for a repressive
government to shut down a
system that most people are using
for perfectly innocuous needs
- Ethan Zuckerman on the Cute
Cat Theory

36. Images, videos and data from
> Datanalysis research group IN3 (UOC University)
> “Kairós. The reinvention of the democracy in the Mediterranean” documentary
> Outliers Collective
Special thanks to
Javier Toret
Paolo Gerbaudo
Hector Huerga
Lali Sandiumenge
Pablo Aragón
Lilia Weslaty
Bernardo Gutiérrez
Juan Linares
Nuria Vila
Ruben Martínez December 2015